Harris
Character Analysis

One of Moses’s friends. A black immigrant like Moses, Harris likes to try to present himself as an Englishman, dressing in the style of a distinguished white gentleman and throwing “fetes” for high-society white people. The narrator writes, “Harris is a fellar who like to play ladeda, and he like English customs and thing, he does be polite and say thank you and he does get up in the bus and the tube to let woman sit down, which is a thing even them Englishmen don’t do.” Whereas Harris’s fellow immigrants speak creolized English, he himself makes an effort to speak as if he were born in London. When he hosts a large party, he’s distraught that his black friends show up at the door, fearing they’ll ruin the atmosphere by behaving inappropriately in front of the white guests. Five Past Twelve takes special pleasure in provoking Harris, disingenuously promising to not disrupt the party but clearly intending to do just that. Interestingly enough, the more distracted and flustered Harris grows during the course of the party, the more he forgets to maintain his British way of speaking, suddenly slipping into creolized English for a moment before catching himself.

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